Level Up.pdf

92 LEVEL 5 The Three Cs, Part 1—Character
Facial proportions. Enlarge facial features such as eyes, chins, and
mouths to convey greater expression and range of emotion. You find this all
the time in Japanese games and anime.
Movement. If you don ’ t have the time and money to spend on fancy
inverse kinematics, motion capture and dynamics, you might be better off
choosing stylized representations for your characters. The more stylized
your character, the more exaggerated the movements can be. Watch and
learn from old Tex Avery cartoons (for example) to see just how far you can
go with exaggerated character movement.
Humanity. The great thing about stylized characters is that they don ’ t have
to be human. Anthropomorphic characters like Ratchet (and Clank), Sly
Cooper and Aero the Acrobat can provide just as much emotion and player
investment as human ones can.
Realistic or stylized? It ’ s a choice that comes down to: what is best for your
game? For example, the Team Fortress 2 team started building their game
with realistically designed characters and then did a 180 with character
designs inspired by artists J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, and Norman
Rockwell by way of Pixar. It was a great choice; one that changed the tone
of the entire franchise for the better.
Finally, We Talk about Gameplay
We’ ve discussed what the player looks like, now let ’ s talk about what he
does. All gameplay flows from the main character. You have to think about
the player ’ s relationship to the world. How tall is your character? How tall or
short are all the other characters and enemies in relationship to the main
character? How long is the character ’ s reach? If your character is a quadruped
or a vehicle, how long and wide is it? As you create your character, you
determine these proportions. These proportions become the basis of the
character ’ s metrics: the cornerstone of your gameplay and design.
But before we dive into metrics, let ’ s talk about fencing.
When you fence you learn how far you travel when you step forward, how
far your weapon goes when you extend your arm. A fencer learns that those